Title: the smartest girl in the room

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the world is not. I claim nothing but the plot.

Rating: PG.

Summary: Now You See Me. Dylan tilts his head and thinks: this is a trick. 300 words.

Notes: for the comment fic prompt: "Now You See Me, Dylan Rhodes, this is a trick."

They lock the lock and throw the key into the Seine, and Alma's smiling: as if Dylan hasn't just revealed a career-ending secret to a junior Interpol agent who could use it to make hers. As if there was only one layer here, one mystery to reveal: as if the romance of magic was all there was to this meeting.

He reads secrets in the curve of her mouth, and thinks: Bradley wasn't wrong about the oddity of her assignment.

He smiles back at her and thinks: always be the smartest guy in the room.

He tilts his head and thinks: this is a trick.

"So now that I've revealed my secret," he says, "does that mean I've finally earned yours?"

Alma raises an eyebrow at him, appraising. "If you have to ask, you'll never know," she says, offering only a shrug. "But if you know...."

"You need only ask?" Dylan completes the quote, and almost blurts: Rowling? Really?

But he knows this, suddenly: the wry, assured expectation, the limning of a threshold, the door further up and further in. His apprenticeship to the Eye had been no less convoluted than the Four Horsemen's. But even in Egyptian times, there had been snake charmers and lector priests; common magicians, and those who performed on the stage of kings.

Always there in the key moments, right behind-- or in front of him. And the book; he'd taken it that she might wake and confront him, but she'd fallen asleep with it open to the key page, in plain view.

The closer you are, the less you'll actually see.

"So tell me," Dylan continues lightly, breath catching. Of course. "What's our next magical trick?"

Alma's smile softens again, dimples showing.

"Now that is the question," she says, and holds out her hand.

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